The curtain dropped on the 5th Crossroads Co-production Forum on Wednesday, November 18, with the award ceremony for best cinema project. A cash prize of 10.000 euros, accompanies the award. The project awarded was Ivan Marinovic’ Pasqua, in a production of Branislav Sdric and A Atalanta company.
The initiative took place in the framework of TIFF with the support of the MEDIA European program. Crossroads, with 16 entries this year, aims at supporting the development of projects into feature films. The ceremony opened with TIFF director Despina Mouzaki’s warm speech addressed to the participating directors and producers: “I hope that very soon I will be able to watch all your projects on the big screen. I also hope that I will soon have the chance to meet you all here again, in Thesasaloniki! I would like to thank the entire team of Crossroads and especially the members of the jury”, said Ms Mouzaki.
French producer Marie Pierre Macia, Crossroads’ head and former managing director of the Cannes Director's Fortnight, presented the members of the Jury: Isabelle Fauvel, development consultant at Initiative Films (France), Helen Loveridge, founder of Meridiana Films (England) and Alexander Ris, producer at the Neue Mediopolis Filmproduktion (Germany).
“I would like to thank Marie Pierre Macia and Despina Mouzaki for giving us the opportunity to be here in Thesaloniki and take part in this very interesting event. I would also like to thank my fellow jurors, Isabelle and Alexander, for the civilized manner in which we exchanged our views. We disagreed on very few issues in making our decisions”, said Helen Loveridge, who announced the winners.
The winning project is a collaboration of contributors and agencies from three different countries, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Montenegro. The producer of the awarded film project was also presented with an accreditation for the Cannes Festival Producer’s Network in 2010 and the opportunity to present his project at the Sofia Meetings of Sofia’s Film Festival in 2010.
“The project is a fresh and cliche-free story on harsh economic realities. We firmly believe the director can give life to this story and make a film for the big screen. This is why we selected the project for the 10.000 euros prize”, explained Ms Loveridge.
Taking the floor, winner Ivan Marinovic thanked his producer, Branislav Sdric, stressing that “in our time, it is important to have people who believe in and support young and talented filmmakers”. Mr Sdric said: “I know a good film when I see one, so when I read this script, I realized it is very good. I told Ivan we can make the movie and that filming could begin in March 2011”.
The Jury also decided to present a special citation to project Odyssey of a vagabond princess. The project is based on a script by Altinai Petrovic Njegosh. Janja Kral of French Shilo Films is the producer. Initiative Film, a company that specializes in audiovisual project development, will provide development and consulting services to the project.
Honoring its first collaboration with Crossroads, the European Script and project development program MFI SCRIPT 2 FILM WORKSHOPS, organized by the Mediterranean Film Institute (MFI), awarded a full grant to Syrian project Damascenes, by Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf (script, direction, production), a co-production with France, and a partial grant to The judgment project by Argo Film’s Stefan Komandarev (script, direction and production) from Bulgaria.
“You cannot imagine how much this opportunity means to a country like Syria. We came here very humbly, but we are returning back home full of pride”, said Syrian filmmaker Anas Khalaf, visibly moved.
In the past, the Crossroads’ award has been awarded to Yesim Ustaoglu’s Pandora’s Box (San Sebastian Festival Golden Shell and Silver Shell for leading actress in 2008) and to Nadav Lapid’s Le Policier, which went on to participate in l’Atelier du Cinema of the Cannes Festival in 2008, and is now on the stage of filming. Last year winners, Iglika Triffonova’s False Witness and Giannis Sakaridis’ Plateia Amerikis are scheduled to start filming in 2010.
The Crossroads Co-Production Forum is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the EU MEDIA program and is held in collaboration with Sofia Meetings, Producer’s Network and MFI.
